


live long enough to see yourself become the villain

by youheldyourbreath



Series: watch the world burn (vigilante spider-man) [2]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, post-ffh, so so angsty, vigliante Spider-Man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2020-06-27 06:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19785100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: He stared at his ceiling and began to quietly catalogue his night. Patrol was harder to do effectively in shadows. Peter reached for the handle of his half-empty mini-fridge that partly functioned as his bedside table and grabbed his last soda. He cracked it open and took two long gulps. It was more frosty than flavor, but, after the night he braved, the fresh cold was welcome.“EDITH,” Peter rasped, “Give me a status report on subjects Jarvis, Springtime and Capital M.”





	1. Chapter 1

_“EDITH, lights on.”_

The fluorescents statically winked to life. Peter pulled the red and black mask free from his face, and tossed it on the cluttered metal work table jammed in the corner of the room. He rubbed his weary eyes and padded across the cold, concrete floor to his narrow bed. The sheets needed a washing, but he hardly cared as he collapsed on the bed with a thud.

He stared at his ceiling and began to quietly catalogue his night. Patrol was harder to do effectively in shadows. Peter reached for the handle of his half-empty mini-fridge that partly functioned as his bedside table and grabbed his last soda. He cracked it open and took two long gulps. It was more frosty than flavor, but, after the night he braved, the fresh cold was welcome. 

“EDITH,” Peter rasped, “Give me a status report on subjects Jarvis, Springtime and Capital M.”

The AI materialized a data screen on the wall opposite his bed. EDITH notified him, “Compiling personnel reports on subjects Jarvis, Springtime and Capital M.”

Peter lumbered to a sitting position and took another drink of his too cold soda, as he anxiously waited for his daily reports.

Finally, the data screen displayed blurry security footage. It looked to be from Rocky’s Pizza, just three blocks from the library he used to frequent with his friends. And, if he strained to listen, Peter could just make out the taped conversation . 

“Two slices of cheese with extra cheese, please,” Ned said, yanking some cash from his Velcro-wallet.

The boy behind the counter sniffed, “Is that all?”

“Uh, and two cokes. One for me and--,” Ned turned to look at someone, but there was no one there. His friend shook his head, “Just the one coke. One coke.”

Peter tried to blink away his exhaustion. “EDITH?”

The AI clicked, “Yes, Peter?”

“Is that the only update on Jarvis?”

“Subject Jarvis, alias Edward Leeds, is currently at home building LEGOs. Would you like to see?”

Peter rested his soda on the top of the mini-fridge. “No. No, uh, that’s okay.”

The image of lonely Ned in the pizzeria faded. Peter felt something in his chest pang.

EDITH continued to populate the next search.

Next, the screen showed a grainy, cellphone video of May on the steps of City Hall. She was shouting something he could barely discern in a blue and red megaphone. She was surrounded by other protestors, equally sporting some variation of blue and red.

The person recording was not a professional. The camera violently shook and he only saw May in the brief moments the camera was steady enough to focus on her.

“Yo, dude,” the camera-man laughed, “that’s that weird Spider-Guy’s Aunt.”

A second voice chortled, “Nah, no way.”

“No, trust me. Fuck what is her name. It’s something— _Something_ Parker. Trust me,” the camera-man insisted.

Peter muted the stream, “EDITH. Do we not have any clearer video?”

“I’m sorry, Peter. There were no official reporters at today’s demonstration.”

He felt his throat restrict with unwanted tightness. The video continued to play on, muted, and Peter sat quietly on his bed, scrutinizing all of the footage. Finally, the spotty camera-man managed to stand still and Peter hastily instructed, “Pause that.”

EDITH did as she was instructed. The shaky video froze and, even in the pixilated state of the stream, Peter could detect the telltale line that only formed between his Aunt’s eyes when she was viciously angry. She did not look upset anymore, like she had the day she held her press conference begging him to come home. She knew he didn’t kill Mysterio, she had said. She was going to compile a team of lawyers to prove her nephew’s innocence. But _please_ , she had pleaded, May just wanted Peter to come home.

He didn’t. And she had moved beyond the hurt and defeat and worry. Now, she was angry. The little line between her eyes was not the only clue. She was being reckless with her safety in every, exhaustive effort to bring him home.

Sometimes, when he was at his weakest, he wanted swing by their crappy, post-Blip apartment and tell her to stop the demonstrations, to stop fighting for him. She was putting herself in danger by being his loudest and strongest advocate. He would not lose her to his enemies.

He never called. It was a gamble, but he was certain May was much safer without him in the picture.

Peter ripped his eyes away from the frozen image of his aunt with the megaphone locked in her grip. “EDITH, status report on Capital M.”

The image of May faded and, in her place, the most clear recording yet occupied the screen. MJ was bent over one of the lab tables at the freshly rebuilt compound upstate. She was scratching more notes on the same map he had seen her slave over for weeks. “God damn it, Peter,” she huffed. She lifted her head from her diligent work and scowled at the security camera. “Why are you making it so difficult to find you?” 

He felt his heart arrest. The last nine weeks, every night—after his patrol, when he still tried to protect his neighborhood, when he had EDITH compile her status reports on his loved ones— Michelle spoke directly to him. It did not matter if she was upstate at the new Avengers compound. Or if she was sitting in her bedroom in Manhattan and talking to the blinking camera of her at-home computer. Or if she was looking into the camera on her phone. Every night she left a message for him.

She knew him, she said a few weeks into her routine, and, if she was right, which she knew she was, the Peter Parker she knew would absolutely use his billion-dollar Stark tech to check-in on everyone. To see if they were safe. To see if they were alright. His eyes had glistened over with tears that night.

She frowned and crossed out another row of blocks on her map of New York City. “Honestly, you might be the worst boyfriend in the entire world.” Peter mistily laughed. “Most girls would think their boyfriends were avoiding them if they kept this disappearing act up for as long as you have.” He inched forward to the edge of his bed and pressed his hand against the transparent image of her face. The pads of his fingers connected with the solid structure of the wall and not the soft warmth of her cheek. 

Michelle rubbed her eyes, willing whatever emotion was welling up behind them away, and he, crippled by his anguish, rested his forehead against the wall. The video did not stop. The recording of her continued to talk directly to him. “I know you think you’re protecting us, protecting me, but this isn’t fair, Peter. I miss you. I miss you so much.” Her voice hitched, “It isn’t fair. I only just got you. Come home. _Please_.”

He knew she could not hear him. He knew she was not talking to him now. He knew this was a recording from hours earlier and, likely, the real MJ was asleep in her bed. But he could not help but reply, “I miss you, too.”

Peter lifted his head from the wall and looked into the holographic echoes of her eyes. “When I eventually find you, Peter Parker, you are in _so_ much trouble. You have no idea.”

Her face faded. He grasped for the dimming image. She was gone.

EDITH indicated, “Recording ended.” Peter sucked in a harsh breath. “Do you need to see anything else?”

“No,” Peter scraped, shaking his head. “Thank you, EDITH.”

He succumbed to the heavy weight of his body and fell back into the arms of his bed. Peter curled in on himself and stared at the wall where the images of the people he loved once screened. He stared at that wall for quite some time, until sleep mercifully claimed him and dragged him headfirst into welcome dreaming where he was with them, again.


	2. Chapter 2

He perched on the edge of Osborn Towers, overlooking his city, cloaked in the hazy shadow of nighttime in city that never blinked completely black. Below, he could see the growing crowd of protestors forming outside of City Hall. Peter murmured, “EDITH zoom in on the crowd.”

“Zooming in on the crowd.”

His mask clipped until the blurry image of the protest below sharpened into clarity. May was shouting into a bullhorn. MJ was frowning at her side, purposefully ignoring the counter-protestors that had broken out to shout in her face. She was stoic and so violently beautiful it made his heart pang. “EDITH, tap into whatever phones are down there. Get me any kind of sound feed you can.” The little earpiece under his mask filtered the protest live, if fuzzy. The shouting he could make out from the rooftop went from a rumble to a roar.

He could parse out two definitive chants—one from the anti-Spider-Man camp and the other from the pro-Peter-Parker supporters. The man snarling in MJ’s face practically spit, “Lock him up!” His girlfriend stood her ground and looked just past the man that was clamoring to get a rise out of her.

Peter privately smiled, “That’s my girl.”

His Aunt climbed on the base of a statue, stationing herself just above the crowd of protestors, and yelled into her bullhorn, painted in his signature colors, “No justice! No peace!” Half of the crowd shouted it back. The other booed her openly and conjured up another round of chants, damning him. Peter felt his fist tighten.

His ear peaked when he heard the grumble of some lowlife bark at MJ, “Your boyfriend is a criminal.” Peter stayed the impulse to web down to the protest and hang the guy by the back of his shirt off of a nearby lamp with his webshooters. Barely.

To her credit, MJ slowly blinked at the accusation and repeated in time with May, “No Justice. No peace.” The man scraped out a laugh at her— MJ remained unmoved— and stormed away to taunt another target.

Then, Michelle whispered just low enough that only EDITH’s tech would have been able to make out her words, “You watching this, Parker?” Peter closed his eyes. He nodded. He knew she could not see him, but it was enough to know that she was thinking of him, hoping he was watching over her like some fallen angel.

All at once, the crowd quieted when the podium that had been notably empty at the foot of City Hall was being approached by a group of attorneys. No, not attorneys, prosecutors. The crowd watched-on in quiet awe for only a moment before the shouting picked up again in earnest, louder and more pointed than before. Peter had learned every name, every person that was a part of his international prosecution team. He was a United States citizen and the United Kingdom had struck up a deal with the United States to prosecute him together, in New York, where he was doubtlessly hiding out. He was wanted for murder.

They had read out his indictment three months ago on the steps of City Hall. He was wanted for the murder of Quentin Beck and for crimes of terror in the United Kingdom. If he cooperated with the law, he would be served justice, the prosecution had said. The court of public opinion had already damned him. Peter knew he would go to prison, or worse, if he turned himself in. He could not seek the misinformed justice of those he swore to protect when Tony had awkwardly knighted him en-route to Titan. He was an Avenger, even when it was hard, especially when it was hard.

He remembered something Captain America had said to him once, in the fallout of Thanos, when he had been some broken kid on the steps of Tony’s house by the lake dressed in all black. Steve Rogers had taken one look at him, too young to have the burden of a legacy thrust on his shoulders, and said, “Look, Peter, I know this is going to be hard. People are going to expect you to make choices, now, and sometimes those choices won’t be easy. They’re going to be hard. Really hard. But it doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.”

Peter had sniffed and Steve had silently offered him a handkerchief from his breast pocket. He gratefully took it while the World War II veteran had continued, “This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world -- "No, YOU move.”

The youngest member of the prosecution approached the microphone and the crowd only barely quieted enough so that she could speak. Peter held his breath. “This is a public appeal to one Peter Benjamin Parker. This is the three month mark for the warrant of your arrest. Today is your last day to turn yourself in quietly. After today, the NYPD will be given leave to use whatever assets it has at its disposal to appertain you.” A portion of the crowd jeered. May looked pained. MJ barely breathed, but the hand wrapped around her sign was white at the knuckles from gripping it too tightly.

Liz Toomes looked down the barrel of the microphone and her voice echoed in the square, “No one is above the law.”

* * *

After the announcement at City Hall, Peter stopped seven armed robberies, saved three children from a burning building near Lincoln Center and webbed a car thief to the side of the nearest NYPD precinct. He did all of this quietly, with no fanfare, and was gone as quickly as he had arrived.

He yanked his mask off when he fell into the abandoned lab that had been his home the last few months. The fluorescents were hard on his eyes, but he couldn’t very well walk into a store and pick up something less harsh. His life was waiting for the next save. He did not have the freedom or anonymity to do anything as mundane as pick up a few lightbulbs.

“EDITH,” Peter rubbed his eyes with the pad of his hands.

“Yes, Peter,” the impersonal robotic voice replied.

He yanked open the little fridge that seconded as his bedside table to nothing. It was entirely empty. Peter sucked in a sharp breath. Instead of giving in to his anger and sadness, he fell on the hard surface of his cot and mumbled into the sheets, “Give me a status report on subjects Jarvis, Springtime and Capital M.”

The familiar data screen on the ceiling above his bed began to materialize. He was silently thankful that EDITH knew he was not in the mood to lumber to a seated position, to watch his reports on the wall opposite his bed. He was bone tired and raw from the events of the day. He had not been so close to May or MJ since the last announcement from his prosecution, nearly a month ago. He purposefully kept his distance, to keep them safe, and to protect his heart. It was hard to be near them, and harder still to remain just out of reach.

He was tired. He wanted to cry. He sniffled and rolled over on his back to look up at the data screen. “Compiling personnel reports on subjects Jarvis, Springtime and Capital M.”

Immediately, he recognized the protest at City Hall. He had been there in-person, when May had climbed the base of the statue and started to chant with the crowd. He saw MJ’s unreadable expression and read the sign in her fist. It made him smile, then. Now, it only made him ache.

He was so close to her this afternoon. And now he was back to watching her from afar on some blue-tinted, blurry screen. It was miserable.

Peter shook his head, “I saw this, EDITH. Get me something else on subject Jarvis.”

“Compiling security footage from inside the offices of Junior Prosecutor, Elizabeth Toomes.”

His chest seized. “No, wai—” But suddenly he was in Liz’s office and May was there, too, standing, rigidly, across from the messy wooden desk, staring down the girl he once knew before, well, everything.

He had avoided these security tapes in the past. He knew Liz was on his prosecution team. He knew they sported her in front of the cameras, as a ploy to scrape at his heart. It was masterful and painful.

She picked up a manila folder on her desk. “He’s got nothing to fear, if he’s got nothing to hide.” The papers rustled as Liz sorted through them with disinterest. “If that’s all, Mrs. Parker, I have a busy day ahead of me.” 

May lit up with fury. “That’s bullshit!” Peter briefly closed his eyes. “He’s innocent,” May insisted, snatching the useless papers from Liz’s hand.

Her eyes snapped up. Peter had avoided any and all Liz recordings for this very reason—he had realized when they first touted her out on the steps of City Hall that he did not know Liz Toomes anymore. The twenty-four year old prosecutor that lived through her father’s imprisonment and the blip was not the same girl he bumbled out an awkward yet heartfelt invitation to homecoming to over six years ago, now. This new Liz bore the markings of her traumas in the grit of her jaw and the sorrow in her eyes, but it was more apparent in the safety of her office, away from the prying eyes of the news cameras. 

He helplessly murmured to the fuzzy recorded projection, “She’s just doing her job, May.”

“ _Please_ ,” he watched May’s bottom lip quiver. “He’s just a kid.” 

“I’m not the lead prosecutor on his case. Even if I wanted to do something, I couldn’t. My hands are tied.”

“He—“

“He is a seventeen year old boy with the most advanced human technological asset at his disposal. The only tech that could track him down is Wakandan, but the Wakandan government refuses to aid the US and UK in this investigation.” Liz bluntly laid out the facts, “He is making himself the enemy, May.”

“He is keeping himself safe.”

Liz grabbed her papers back, and when she spoke, her voice was pitched dangerously low, “It looks like he did it. Even if he _is_ innocent, his refusal to aid this investigation alone is jail time. He’s not giving us many options.” 

Peter willed himself to remember Cap’s words. He would plant himself like a tree, and do what was right. He could not help people from prison. He was innocent. He knew it. May knew it. Ned knew it. MJ knew it.

And it put them all in _terrible_ danger.

“EDITH,” Peter heard his voice catch. “EDITH, stop the recording.”

“Would you like me to stop all personnel reports, Peter?”

“Yes,” he said, swinging his legs over his cot and plucking his mask with the thwip of a web. “Lock down the lab, EDITH,” he ordered, as he pulled the door closed behind him and lowered his mask over his face in the brisk, New York evening air.

* * *

“You shouldn’t leave your window open,” he said.

She cursed, loudly, and flicked on her bedroom light. “Jesus, Peter.” She clutched her chest and struggled for a deep breath, “You can’t sneak up on people like that.”

Light filled the room and Peter took her in, up close, for the first time in months. She was just as he remembered her, too beautiful for words. The fissure in his chest that had only grown more and more broken in the days since he had left her, messily started to stitch together. “ _Em_ ,” he whispered.

She looked torn…no, furious. And hurt. And so, so relieved to see him. All of those emotions warred for dominance on her face. But before just one emotion could settle on her features, he saw something alarming occur to her and she hastily brushed past him, shutting her window and drawing her curtains. “What are you doing here?” she whirled on him. “Someone could have seen you. Of all the stupid, **reckless** —mm…”

He silenced her with a kiss. Without her even realizing, drawn like a satellite to her gravitational pull, he had bridged the distance between them. His hands cupped her cheeks and he leaned up, just so, to tilt her face into his kiss. He felt her eyelashes blink drowsily shut as she returned his embrace, her own hands fisted in the brown curls at the base of his neck. She hummed, deliriously amused yet plainly aching, “You need a haircut.”

He huffed a wide smile against her mouth, “I missed you.”

When they finally broke apart, they pressed their foreheads together and he could imagine her mustering the courage to ask, “Peter, what are you doing here?”

He held her close to him, his fingers threaded carelessly in her loopy curls, and said, “Em,” His voice snagged on a tear. “I know what I need to do, but I—I couldn’t leave."

She almost protested.

He hushed her with another kiss, "Not without saying goodbye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the little Captain America speech is from the Civil War comic AND super important to what is coming next. mwhauhaha.


	3. Chapter 3

The cot that had doubled for a bed in the months he had been on the run was tantamount to torture. It creaked whenever he moved so much as an inch, and was more of a metal board than a bed. There had been nights when he had webbed a hammock to sleep on instead of damning himself to the unforgiving pain of the cot. And even on the nights when he was so bone-tired he felt as though he could have slept anywhere, the bed kept him awake. Along with his demons.

He had names for them all—Ben Parker, Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark. 

Michelle’s bed was nothing like his cot. Her bed was narrow, but soft and warm. It smelled like her. It smelled liked him, too, now. But perhaps the best feature of her bed was the naked girl that laid wrapped up in him on it. She beat away the demons that plagued his every waking moment, like a balm.

He twisted his face and hid a tired but true smile in her hair. The patterns she traced on his bare chest with the soft pad of her index finger stilled. She brushed a kiss on the slope of his neck and yawned a warning, “Don’t be so pleased with yourself.”

“Can’t help it.”

She lazily wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her chin in the divot between his collarbones. From that vantage point, she could kiss his chin and jaw and the underside of his neck. Another smile came unbidden. She warned him, again, “What did I say about being pleased with yourself?”

“I missed you,” he tilted his chin down, capturing her mouth in a half-hearted kiss. He could feel sleep—real sleep that was devoid of his demons—nipping at his consciousness. He fought the urge to succumb to rest. The pair of them did not have much time left. He did not want to waste their hours with sleeping. He had so much to say to her, still. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to banish the threat of daylight and hold her, because when the first whispers of morning snuck into her room, he would have to steal away like a bandit. He did not know how long it would be before he would be able to see her, again. If ever.

He frowned.

The right thing was sometimes the most impossible thing. To be a hero meant to sacrifice. His mentors had taught him that, if nothing else. Peter reminded himself of Captain America’s words, “No, YOU move.”

He buried a relentlessly gentle hand in her thick, disheveled curls. “Peter—,” she started.

He hushed her with a kiss. She inched her body up, draping it over his frame, and kissed him with unrestrained vigor. Peter grasped the back of her head, holding her to him, and slowed their warring mouths. “Em,” he whispered, between kisses, “It is going to be okay.”

She shook her head and tried to punish him with a hundred kisses.

With two guiding hands on her cheeks, he lifted her lips from his, and looked up into her eyes. They were misty with unshed tears, but he knew she would not cry.

Not for the first time, he wondered if she was the real superhero between them.

“I love you,” he whispered. He had told her he loved her earlier that night, when she had gasped up into his mouth and his greedy hands roamed her skin. She had sobbed it back when tumbled into inexplicable ecstasy. Now, his heart was no longer thudding out of his chest, like something fearsome and wild and beautiful. Now, he could think straight and she was still the only name etched into his heart.

He had fallen in love with her over the slow, painful months apart. He had fallen in love with the flickers of her smile in the footage EDITH broadcasted on the wall opposite of his cot. He had fallen in love with her strength and humor and brilliance. He knew he was in trouble the first day she looked directly into the security camera he was observing her from and said hello.

“I love you, too.”

He rolled her back onto her tangled purple duvet. The muted city lights filled her room like starlight. 

* * *

She was awake when he dressed at dawn. He sat perched on the edge of her bed and only stopped pulling on his red spandex when Michelle’s fingertips reached out and touched his exposed back. He shuttered. _He was so tired_. “Good morning,” she said, softly.

Peter glanced over his shoulder and committed this moment to memory, everything from the warm look in her eyes to the way she rested her cheek on her outstretched arm. He bent over and stole a kiss. She smiled against his lips and he did, too. “Good morning,” he finally said, when he was satisfied.

“See you tomorrow?” she asked.

He nodded and lied, “See you tomorrow.”

Like a shot, she sat up and wrapped her arms around him. He flexed his palm against the small of her back, clutching her to him with ferocity. She husked a shaky breath against his cheek, “You do what you need to do and you come home. Got that, Parker?”

Peter held her closer as an answer. She seized him, gripping him in her arms tighter. They swayed from the intensity of their embrace.

Light began to sparkle on the horizon.

When the sun rose, Peter was gone.

* * *

Liz Allen-Toomes, Junior Prosecutor to that State of New York, unlocked her dark, small office the morning after the city’s final plea to Peter Parker. He had not turned himself in, and Michelle was charged with serving notice to the NYPD. Today would begin the first day of the manhunt for Spider-Man. Public Enemy. Killer.

Teenager.

Sweet boy that asked her to the school dance.

Superhero menace that sent her father to prison.

He was full of so many contradictory things that Liz did not know how to begin to pick apart what was true. The conservative media had certainly taken one stance on Peter. He was a danger to society, they said. Progressive media was not sure what to make of Peter Parker. The footage from Quentin Beck was obviously doctored, they argued, but a man was dead.

The court of public opinion was split.

Liz Allen-Toomes was too.

“God damn it, Peter,” she muttered, as she fell into the uncharitable plush of her secondhand office seat.

“Hey, Liz,” an exhausted voice said from the open door to her office.

She lifted her head. Peter Parker—Spider-Man, pubic enemy, killer, teenager, sweet boy that asked her to the school dance, superhero menace that sent her father to prison—stood in her doorway. He looked bad. He looked every bit his age, but his eyes had aged a millennia. “Peter,” she blinked in disbelief. She clenched her eyes shut. Then, opened them, expecting the figure in her doorway to disappear.

The Spider-Man shrugged a shoulder, with an air of good humor, and quipped, “Still here.” Then, he did something even more outrageous than simply standing there.

He presented his wrists and said, “I hereby turn myself in to the State of New York.” His smile did not quite reach his eyes when he said, “You, uh, may wanna call the cops. Rumor has it that I’m a dangerous person.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is going to be a corresponding oneshot that expands on the ENTIRE night with Peter and MJ. and it is going to be a bit racy. so I didn't want to include it here to keep the rating T.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your patience! I have been very busy with life responsibilities. hopefully the next update won't take as long. warning: angst ahead.

He clanked at the steel bars of his holding cell with the metal of his watch. The fifteen guards that lingered on standby with their overly flashy guns froze every time Peter made so much as a noise. It was enough to make him smile. The seventeen year old kid with sticky hands was now the big, bad wolf.

The guards did not share his amusement.

He tapped on the bars, again, making them sing, and one of the guards snapped, “Get back from there, you.” The severe looking policeman slammed the butt of his gun against the bars, as if to remind Peter he could make noise, too.

Peter raised his hands in surrender and retreated from the bars.

“Leave him alone,” another guard muttered.

The mean looking one snapped, “He’s driving me up the wall with all that racket.”

“He’s just a kid,” intervened a third guard.

The Once Spider-Man slid down the wall of the his cell and pooled his mess of limbs on the floor. He was no longer in his suit. They had confiscated it when he had turned himself in. The scratchy clothes they had offered him in lieu of his suit was a polyester disaster. He could have been allergic to the material, for how much it made his skin crawl.

He wanted to go home. He missed May. If he strained enough, or pretended enough, he could imagine her voice echoing outside the station with the other protestors that no doubt had come to demonstrate. When he had been taken into custody, one of the police officers had sneered, “Smile for the cameras, Parker. You’ll be all over the news soon enough.” And he had not exaggerated. When the doors of City Hall had opened his eyes flooded with a sea of flashing lights. He was inundated with screaming photographers as a parade of officers marched him to a police van.

Peter tipped his head back against the cold stone. “How long do you plan on keeping me here?”

“Until the Judge denies you bail,” the vindictive guard from earlier, quipped.

“Hanson!” A chorus of guards cursed and sighed at their comrade.

The seventeen year old froze. He felt his neck ache when he lifted it from the wall and lumbered to standing. He slowly approached the bars, aware of all of the guns that could be turned on his person at any moment. Peter Parker was an enemy of the state. If he went missing, who would argue that he did not have it coming to him? He treaded carefully. “They are already ruling on my bail?”

Hanson unsnapped his gun from his holster and pointed it in Peter’s direction. He took two large steps away from the bars. “Back up,” Hanson said, as if his gun was not message enough.

“I have the right to—”

“Nothing,” Hanson snipped. “You killed that Beck fellow. You terrorized London, and you’re a terror to our city, too.”

“I didn’t kill Beck,” Peter ground his teeth. “And I am cooperating with law enforcement. I am an American citizen. I have the right to due process.”

“I said back up!” He nudged the nose of his gun between two sets of bars.

Peter felt bile rise in his throat. He could see down the barrel of the gun. It was dark and infinite, just like the silent promise of its shot. He shakily rose his hands higher, “I am not anywhere near those bars.”

“He’s being disruptive,” Hanson said, cocking his gun. The resounding sound of the gun spooked some of the other officers to come to his aid. And yet, as Peter was faced with a gun and a mean-spirited man behind it, he could not help but notice that the small contingent of those that tried to warn off their colleague were greatly outnumbered by the others that stood silently by and watched the event unfold.

He realized some of the men in that room wanted him to die. They wanted a seventeen year old kid to be killed in a damp, holding-cell for a crime he did not commit.

Peter sent a tiny prayer to anyone, anywhere that he would make it out of his holding cell. To make things right, he had to make it out of his tiny cell. He owed that much to May and Ned and MJ.

Hanson did not look like he was going to give Peter that chance.

Peter closed his eyes. 

“Put that gun down, Hanson!”

The command shot through his bones, rattling his very marrow. The seventeen year old collapsed on the floor from relief. He did not bother opening his eyes to check who had been his savior. He was too busy vibrating from the blood-thrumming terror. He curled around himself, holding his limps as if to take stock of their existence. He still had both hands, a set of arms and legs, and, as far as he could tell, his head remained squarely on his shoulders.

He shivered as the muffled voice distantly explained he was being relocated. 

In one heart-arresting moment, the concept of safety eroded. After Thanos, he certainly did not believe in normal anymore, but he believed in safe, in that way that foolhardy boys could with their naive hearts. Now, it was gone. No one was safe. Nothing was sacred. He might very well die here.

He sent another prayer up into the universe for the people he loved.

* * *

Liz Allen-Toomes had not seen Michelle Jones since long before decimation of humanity. Her sudden reappearance in her office was almost as alarming to her Peter’s appearance had been that morning.

She had mourned her young friend when the list of lost students came out of Midtown and her name had been on it. Liz had even gone to a vigil for all of the disappeared teenagers at Midtown in the time after half of humanity died and the whole world felt like one, big funeral. She had lit a candle for Michelle and Peter that day and promptly shelved that chapter of her life to cope with the pain. She never expected to see her young friend, again.

Then, the world returned to its rightful state and humanity was restored. In the elation of the _after_ , Liz vaguely remembered liking a post on Facebook from Michelle when she updated her status to mark herself as “back” post-decimation. It had been her only interaction with the girl since before she was lost.

Seeing her in person again, looking the same as Liz had seen her last, was disorienting. She was a perfect snapshot of Liz’s past, frozen in time for five years.

All save one thing—Michelle’s eyes were furious and fierce. In her memories, the young girl had always exuded an air of apathy etched behind her irises. All of that apathy was gone.

And she knew why.

“Michelle—”

“Where is he, Liz?” Michelle snarled. There was not even the memory of goodwill between them, now. Liz knew she had pissed it all away when she had led Peter out in handcuffs that morning.

“I am not at—”

“Where. Is. He. Liz?” the lion-hearted girl demanded.

As she crossed around to the front of her desk, her arms swung heavily at her sides. “You know I’m not at liberty to tell you that while he is in transit. For his own safe—”

“Where the _hell_ is he, Liz?” Liz flinched. Michelle did not take pity on her once-friend and her obvious discomfort. Instead, she took an intrusive step into her space and kept the pressure on. “I know he wasn’t unfit to attend his own court hearing this afternoon. I _saw_ him this morning. He was of sound mind and body. So, he was kept from his own hearing and denied bail unlawfully. And you know it.”

“I am going to pretend like I didn’t just hear that you were aiding and abetting a wanted criminal.”

Michelle cocked her head to the side. “What are you going to do about it? Lock me up, too?” The words were flung so callously, Liz felt the words cut into her conscience.

"I am not the bad guy here!" 

"And I'm not leaving. Not until you tell me where the _hell_ you took my boyfriend." 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hey there! thank you for your patience!!! I'm hoping to get the next chapter out a week from today. aaaaaand I am SO SORRY for the chapter you are about to read. it is a sad one.

The handcuffs on his wrists were too tight. They snagged on his skin painfully, pulling apart his skin like taffy and drawing blood, but Peter took the agony with a flat mouth. He did not dare whimper or complain. His skin would slowly stitch itself back together with time. There were benefits to enhanced healing, and yet none of those things included an immunity to pain. Peter still felt each snag of his bloody wrists. Still, he said nothing. Peter looked across the van to one of the guards who smirked, feral and wide. Peter lowered his gaze.

The ill-fitting handcuffs were intentional. 

He tried not to struggle. He would not give these barbarians the satisfaction. 

There was nothing he could do to clear his name if he remained in hiding. If he had a chance, a prayer at righting what had been so egregiously wronged by Quentin Beck, he would have to cooperate with the authorities. He had a plan, but with each pull of his skin under the too-tight handcuffs, he questioned his choice. 

Peter closed his eyes and imagined MJ as she had been the morning he left her, sleepily snuggled in his arms. Her skin had been endless and soft, and if he focused hard enough he could still taste the faint fragrant lip balm she had been wearing. It was something tropical, if he had to guess. Maybe pineapple or coconut. As it was, he didn't have enough experience kissing girls to have a catalogue of lip balm flavors at his fingertips. His first kiss had been on that smoky bridge in London where he limped over to the girl of his dreams and threw himself in her waiting arms.

She had been his last kiss, too. 

_No_ , he winced, as the handcuffs tore, again, _you are going to see her again. You are going to see them all._

The van he had been herded into came to an abrupt halt. In an instant, he went flying and collided against one of the laughing guards. No one had bothered to buckle him on when they left the city to...wherever they had taken him. The momentum viciously rattled his handcuffs and he cried out. 

His lapse in decorum amused his guards. Some even exchanged a few taunting words, but he didn't register any of them as he cradled his bloodied wrists. The man who smirked at him from before he hauled him to his feet and Peter whimpered. The heavy set of steel doors opened from the outside and Peter was pulled down from the car. The daylight was aggressive on his eyes, after being held in darkness for so long, and he turned his face away from the most direct sunshine.

None of his guards seemed to mind his reactions. The two that held him up by hanging arm pulled him along a long dirt path. As his eyes began to focus, while he yanked unwillingly, he tried to mark where he had been taken. Nothing looked familiar. It was brown for ages in every direction. The only sign of life was the small, wooden shack twenty feet from where the van had dropped off his detail.

His heart raced wildly. There was nothing and no one for miles in any direction. Maybe this was where they took prisoners that got lost in the system. Peter felt his stomach lurch but there was nothing in his stomach to heave besides sickening worry. He heaved, "Where are you taking me?" 

"Shut up," he was told decisively. 

Peter began to thrash. The closer he got to the shack, the wooden death sentence, the more he felt his strength rally in a last ditch effort of fight or flight. He was _not_ going to go out like this, far away from the city and people he loved. Peter had made promises to MJ when he had climbed out her window that morning and he was not going to let these people make him a liar. 

Months of isolation had thinned him out, but he was Spider-Fucking-Man. He was not helpless. No matter what these assholes wanted him to believe. 

"Get the fuck off of me," he roared, _howled_. 

"Shut up!" 

The guard to his left kicked open the shack. Peter turned his face and threw his head as hard as he could at the pre-occupied man. Their foreheads collided with a _sickening clack_ and it made Peter woozy, but he hit him again and again with the hardest part of his head. The guard yelped in distress and dropped Peter's arm. The second guard cursed and tried to contain Peter with both of his hands, abandoning his gun. 

"You little shit!"

Peter dodged the oncoming hands. He ducked and weaved, and pulled at the handcuffs. It hurt so badly it made his vision cross, but he pulled harder until the metal cracked apart. His hands were still prisoned by the metal at each wrist, but they were graciously separated. It ached his raw skin to use his fists, but he did it anyway, throwing a wide punch at the second guard. 

He felt something mushroom in his chest. It traitorously felt like hope. He was not out of the clear yet. 

Clutching his ringing head, the first guard rallied to his feet. The guard swayed but lifted his fists all the same. He sighed. Peter was going to have to punch his way out of this, it seemed. He never should have gotten in that _damn_ truck—

And then, everything went black. 

* * *

Peter startled awake in a blue-tinted room. His head was woozy, as if he was wadding through deep water, but he managed to sit up with a grunt. He flexed his fingers and felt the pinch of pain in his wrists. He glanced down. No, not just his wrists, but his freshly bandaged wrists. It had been expertly down.

He looked up, to take in his new surroundings, and found the room void of any distinguishing characteristics. There was opaque glass on all sides and the floor was made of a white mat material. There was no furniture. The floor was padded enough to sleep semi-comfortably. 

"You're awake," a booming, crackling voice observed. For one silly, juvenile moment, Peter wondered if he had died and it was God speaking to him, to welcome him to the afterlife. But the omniscient voice sounded like it had been grated through some second rate microphone, like something he would have found in the trash at the start of high school to patch up for the AV club. 

Peter carefully touched his bandaged wrists, mindful not to disrupt the wraps. "Where am I?" he asked, glaring at his hands. 

The voice of God clicked the microphone alive, again, and patiently replied, "Officially or unofficially?" 

"What's true?" 

"You're dead, Mr. Parker." Amused, the voice added, "Officially." 

He shook his head and contested, "No, I'm not."

"Of course you are. Your transport van got in an accident on your way en route to the prison you were going to be kept in until your trial. Sadly, there were no survivors." 

Peter did not know where he was or what had happened to him once the world around him curtained black, but he knew one thing for certain. "I am not dead." 

"Tell them that," the thunderous, distinctly masculine voice said. 

Before Peter could ask, one of the milky glass walls flickered to life as a blue screen. Something angry twisted to life in his stomach as the pixelated images folded into something in high resolution and cataclysmic. He ground his teeth. His fists began to shake as he clenched them and his wrists cried in pain from the strain. 

_"You're lying,"_ she screamed. 

_"Miss,"_ the patient officer tried to console the girl in ruins, clinging to some tattered shirt in her hands. _"It was an accident. There were officers on that van, too."_

She threw the shirt in the officer's face, and Peter tried and failed not to notice it was his decathlon shirt from two years ago. He knew where she had gotten it. Before he left for their date, that final and fateful day, he had dropped it on the floor to change into his suit. He wondered how many nights she had spent with May in his small apartment trying not to fall apart. EDITH had shown him so many defiant versions of MJ in his nightly reports. How long had she been quietly falling apart? How had he missed it?

 _"You're lying!"_ She insisted. 

"YOU'RE LYING!" Peter repeated. The disjointed voice had no smart remark for him, now. It was deafeningly quiet. 

Peter crawled on his knees to the glassy wall. He gingerly reached his hand out and touched the digital face of his girl. _Em_. She was shouting something else, but his ears were ringing too loudly to make out the blurry words. She was throwing her fists against the officer. Her face was overcome with rage and something deeper. Despair. 

"Em," he whispered. She could not hear him. He said her name more loudly, stupidly and hopelessly in vain. 

She blinked away, fading from his vision. His hands flattened against the wall, desperate to touch what was left of her before even the fuzzy halo of what was her image was gone. Peter dropped his head against the glass and took a shuttering breath. "I'm not dead." The voice said nothing more.

"I'm not dead," he said to nothing and no one, as good as a ghost. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied. here is the update. one month and some change from the last chapter. 
> 
> tw: character is in isolation and contemplates suicide

The padded room was a maddening prison. It was a chamber of nothing, designed to be the antithesis of humanity. As the days crept by, or perhaps months, as the boy in solitary had long lost count of the days, he began to half-remember the world before the white room. He knew there was a time when he was not locked away in the quiet isolation, but, as days turned to inconsequential dread, what that life had been once became less and less clear, like trying to hold onto a dream after waking. He was barely lucid most days. Others he screamed for hours on end. No one came to his rescue. 

It was easier to sleep.

In his dreams, he had color and sound. There were people in his dreams with soft smiles and teasing nicknames. He held onto the names of those people from his dreams with fretful unease, like he was afraid to one day wake and lose them completely. 

Sometimes, when he was feeling bold enough to use the voice that no longer had any purpose, he would whisper them aloud. _May. Ned. MJ. Ben. Tony. Peter...Peter...Peter._

No! That was his name. He was certain. He was not quite certain. Someone close to him was named Peter. 

If he closed his eyes and focused, he could almost remember the gentle encouragement of an even-tempered voice. _Long dead_ , another voice, perhaps his conscience, reminded him. The voice of his childhood, the one that called him Peter in that patient tone, was dead. Others, too, he rattled around in his brain. 

_Ben. Tony_. Those were the names of dead men. 

_Peter_ , too, he wondered. Maybe Peter was the name of a dead man he once knew. If he was not dead, the one who was named Peter tapping on the edges of his tattered memories, the boy in the white room hoped he would die soon. 

* * *

It had been 237 days since Michelle Jones had lost Peter Parker. Dead, they had told her. _Please_. She very much doubted it. Something in her stomach curdled whenever she even considered it. Peter Parker was not dead. He had left her with a kiss and a promise to return, and he was good for his promises. He always had been, even when they were snotty kids testing to get into Midtown and he had leant her a pencil for the entrance exams, promising his pencil would bring her good luck. 

It had brought her more than good luck. It had brought her him. It had taken precious time and embarrassing misunderstandings and one absolutely disastrous trip to Europe to find his hand in her own, but she was good at waiting. She had waited then and she waited the months after he had gone into hiding and she would wait for him now. If whoever had him, whoever was keeping them apart, thought they could outwait her, they were as stupid as she was indefatigable.

Ned pushed open the door to Peter's old hideout loft. Michelle lifted her hand in greeting as she pinned another lead to the board she had constructed to find her stupid, noble ~~missing~~ boyfriend. His best friend silently offered MJ her matcha latte and she gratefully took an indulgent sip. Caffeine was the real hero of New York City. Spider-Man be damned. 

"Anything new?" Ned asked, as he inspected the board. Michelle offered Ned a news clipping from the morning paper. He squinted as he read the words. Finally, he admitted, "I don't understand. What does this have to do with Peter?" 

MJ whirled away from the board and dug into the drawer that held all of the papers Peter had kept when he lived in the loft. There were clippings of his saves, stories about his so-called-murder of Quentin Beck and pictures of his loved ones. She only briefly hesitated on the well-worn picture of MJ that had been obviously pressed against Peter's mouth in soft contemplation in the nights they were apart, before she offered Ned an old clipping on one of Peter's saves. 

Ned's eyebrows furrowed. "I don't understand." 

"Without Peter cracking down on crime in New York, who has been free to run the city?" 

"The cops," Ned guessed, comparing the two clippings MJ had offered him. 

She nodded, "And who owns the police?" 

Ned sighed, like he had the half-a-dozen times MJ had presented the same conspiracy theory to him over the last several months. "I know what you're gonna say, MJ." 

"Just hear me out!"

"I have," he remarked. "You know I have. But the fact that you think this is some kind of mob affiliated hit is... _ridiculous_. It isn't like the Avengers don't exist anymore just because Peter isn't here." 

Michelle argued, "But there _has_ been a power vacuum with the Avengers since Tony Stark died. You know it, Ned. The world knows it. The mob knows it. Stark's natural successor was Peter. Without someone dead center, keeping the team focused, the Avengers fall apart. Thor is off-world. T'Challa has duties at home. Hell, Banner is as good as a YouTuber these days. The Avengers are a mess. But _Peter_..." Her voice caught on his name. Ned's face fell in pity and weary understanding. She forced herself not to snap. After all, Ned loved Peter, too. She attempted to rally, only faltering for a moment, and pressed on, saying, "Stark was grooming Peter to lead. Without him, the mob is at a distinct advantage." 

"Strange is in New York, too." 

"He doesn't care about petty Earth stuff. He's some cosmic time lord thing. Whatever the hell that means. He stays out of Earth business. He told you that himself when you saw him back in November. Peter cared, _cares_ about the little guy. He can't have someone like that in the field. He is too much of a liability. Beck was the perfect opportunity to take Spider-Man off the board." 

"MJ," Ned tried to say.

"No," she shook her head. "I know you think its crazy, Ned. I know you think I'm crazy. Hell, everybody does these days. But I am telling you. It's him. He has Peter." 

There was a sickening silence, pervasive and heavy, as MJ chewed on her lip and waited for Ned to respond. She could concede her theory conspiracy at best and crazy at worst, but she knew she was right. She knew like she had known the first day she saw Peter Parker, when he had offered her that stupid pencil, that she was going to fall in love with him. 

Ned pinned the two clippings up on the board and pressed his thumb to the name in black and white. He cursed. Then, he rubbed his face with the flat palms of his hands in spent exhaustion. "Fine," he conceded. "Let's say you're right--" 

"I am," she interrupted. 

"Let's say you're right," Ned repeated, soundly. "How the hell are we supposed to get to Wilson Fisk?" 

Michelle felt her heart shadow in barely restrained fury. Wherever Peter was now, whatever he was suffering, she knew it was Wilson Fisk's doing. She took a pin and stabbed it through the picture of his smug, smiling face on her corkboard with her eyes narrowed. "Don't worry. I know somebody at the DA's office." 


End file.
